What Doctors Can Tell About Your Health Just By Looking At Your Eyes

If seeing well isn't enough of a priority, here's a better reason
to get your vision checked regularly: A third of all known
genetic syndromes can affect your eyes.

In the video below,
from National Geographic, Dr. Neal Adams lists the gamut of
systemic disorders — diseases that affect the entire body — that
ophthalmologists can detect during a simple eye exam.

Your eyeballs can show signs of diabetes, nutritional deficits,
cardiovascular disease, and nerve damage, to name a few.

Here are some of the things ophthalmologists look for during an
exam.

Abnormally shaped or colored blood vessels can show signs of
cardiovascular disease such as high blood pressure.
Ophthalmologists can even see individual red blood cells flowing
through the capillaries — tiny blood vessels — in the eye.

Stress can take a toll on your eyes, just as it can on the rest
of your body. According to Adams, "Stress causes cells behind the
eye to leak fluid, like having a blister in the retina."

Here's what that painful-sounding disorder can look like:

In the eye below, a brown halo surrounds the pupil — the opening
at the center of the eye that looks black — a disorder called
posterior synechia. The condition occurs when the colored part of
the eye, called the iris, gets attached to the eye's lens, which
lies through the pupil.